See the difference between the Core i5 and Core i7

A lot of people don't know which processor to get so check out this great video. He really does an excellent job comparing the 2. Helped me decide that the core i5 was better for what I need. There is not much difference between the GPU's vram according to the benchmarks.

YouTube - 2.4 GHz Core i5 or Core i7 2.66 GHz MacBook Pro? i5 vs i7 Benchmarks & Which one you should get!

 

I didn't really like his conclusion.

the i5 is the superior option for everyone except those running their CPU at full tilt for extended periods of time. the i7 on the top end is ~10%-~15% faster in most cases, but that's rather insignificant unless, again, you use most of the power. this means fractions of fractions of seconds in most apps the average user will run. I don't think "using Photoshop" qualifies as a really good reason to get the i7 either.

IMO: go i5 unless you know you max your CPU out regularly (ie, spending most of your time transcoding videos with Compressor). spend the money saved from NOT buying the i7 to buy an SSD drive. the performance difference you'll see by going SSD will be shocking. And you get the benefit of better battery life at a rather negligible performance loss.


edit: I wonder why there's a 37% jump in performance when using Compressor.



It's really an anomaly compared to the rest of the results which peg the difference between 10%-15%. is Compressor affected by GPU memory/power?

 

Yeah well I didn't say the video was perfect lol. I'm sure the core i3 can handle photoshop just fine. That's interesting to know a SSD can save battery life. I think they're great but I'm waiting for the prices to come down on a 256gb SSD

 

edited my last post to clean it up a bit.

as for SSD, yes...power is saved because of the lack of moving parts to power.

battery life savings will be noticeable.

 

Perhaps it's the 4MB vs 3MB cache? Other than that, it could be something other than hardware that causes the difference.

 

maybe so. because all other benchmarking stats I've looked at since launch (including this guys Handbrake benchmarking) show a 10%-15% increase.

I don't understand how this one program has such a discrepancy. Maybe it's just his test? Or as you said, maybe it's some other piece of hardware.

 

What I said was "something other than hardware", e.g. a bad test or software issues. Cache is the most logical explanation in the absence of any other information, though.

 

sorry. I misread. and I agree with that too.

hard to imagine cache making that kind of difference in only 1 "benchmark" test, though. You'd think a 37% advantage would show itself in some other tests as well.

idk.

 

From what I've seen, extra cache tends to offer a slight advantage in most applications.
The 37% advantage as opposed to the 15% clock speed difference suggests something specific to the test likes the 4MB, though - for example, that specific test might work with data blocks that would fit in the 4MB cache but not the 3MB, causing a significant performance difference. It's hard to say anything for sure without knowing more about the test and seeing further testing, though.

 

I think that depends on the SSD and the original HDD. SSDs are faster at their job, obviously, but they generally consume more power. Sometimes significantly more.

I noticed no increase in battery life at all when I upgraded to the 160 Intel G2.